The Way

Every being in the universe

Is an expression of the Tao.

It springs into existence,

unconscious, perfect, free,

takes on a physical body,

lets circumstances complete it.

That is why every being

Spontaneously honors the Tao.

-Tao Te Ching Chapter 51, verse 1.

Translator Stephen Mitchell’s notes on this verse explain that “honoring the Tao” means respecting the way things are. In other words, there’s my way, there’s your way, and then there’s the way it actually is.

As Qigong students we practice slowing down enough to notice what is. So many of us have been trained to push toward a goal or imagine what will be, that we miss the truth of the moment; but there are such riches to be excavated there!

  I love the phrase “unconscious, perfect, free”, too. You can enjoy a wonderful, healing meditation by patiently looking for that part in you, the part that’s perfect and free. It’s there, somewhere, even when “circumstances” may have pushed it into a temporarily uncomfortable form.